American education is distinctive in the decentralization of its funding and control. Despite recent expansion, the role of the federal government is still restricted to funding and authority in special programs and situations, while both states and localities have authority to define educational purposes, programs, and policies. At all levels of the administrative organization, administrators must consider relationships with groups outside the educational hierarchy, such as parent, community, and legislative bodies. Centralization of authority and funding at the federal level would theoretically reduce the power of these outside groups and increase the importance of relationships within the vertical hierarchy, while simplifying and ritualizing administrative functions. If funding alone or authority alone were centralized, it would appear that many of the same results would occur. The American case is one of fragmented centralization, featuring unrelated federal funding programs processed through several independent channels. The situation seems to lead to a massive middle-level educational bureaucracy, poorly linked with the classroom world below, little integrated around broad educational policies or purposes, organized for the function of reporting to a wide, fragmented funding and control environment, and less and less able to respond to the legitimate authority of local systems. (Author/PGD)